The Balanced View
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The relationship between homework and academic per-formance is influenced heavily by grade level. The ef-fects at the elementary level are trivial. For high schoolstudents, however, homework can make a significantimactonachievement.
What do people say about homework?
Homework has both its cham-pions and its critics. Advocatesof homework say that it can
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improve students’ chancesfor academic success byincreasing the amount of time they are engaged inlearning.
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improve students’ studyskills and attitudes towardschool.
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promote student independenceand personal responsibility.
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increase parent appreciation of and involvement in schooling.
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facilitate more rapidmovement through thecurriculum by enablingteachers to introduce newmaterial more quickly.Supporters also say that home-work is one of the main waysparents gain insight aboutwhat’s going on in school andthe progress of their children.Opponents, on the other hand,claim that homework can
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limit the amount of timestudents spend in valuableextracurricular activities orwith their families.
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lead to undesirable behav-iors such as cheating andcopying.
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overwhelm students andresult in negative attitudestowards school, includingdropping out.
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promote parental interfer-ence in learning.Opponents further argue thathomework can exacerbate existingsocial inequities. Poorer studentsare likely to have more difficultycompleting homework than theirwell-to-do-peers because they lack the needed time, resources, space,and study aids. Outside jobs andfamily demands also hamperhomework completion for thesestudents. So, while homework may be beneficial for better stu-dents from better homes, it cancreate a frustrating situation, det-rimental to learning, for the disad-vantaged.
What does research say?
Since the 1950’s, fewer than 150research studies on homework have been published. Despite thismeager amount for a subject ascontentious as homework, somegeneral conclusions can be drawn.Those summed up below are basedon several meta-analyses, includ-ing an exhaustive study by HarrisCooper, by far, the most prolificresearcher of homework and itseffects.
Is homework effective?
Research suggests that homework can have a positive effect on stu-dent achievement, but the degreeof effectiveness is strongly in-fluenced by grade level. At theelementary level, homework produces small, almost trivialimprovements in grades orstandardized test scores. At thehigh school level, however, theeffects are large: on standard-ized tests or grades, the averagehigh school student regularlyassigned homework can be ex-pected to outperform 69 per-cent of students not givenhomework. Junior high schoolstudents regularly assignedhomework can be expected tooutperform 60 percent of theirno-homework classmates.Studies have also examined theoutcomes of homework in rela-tion to other instructional tech-niques such as ability grouping,individualized instruction, co-operative learning, direct in-struction, higher-level cognitivequestioning, and use of regularand positive feedback. Here,too, a grade level effect hasbeen found. At the elementarylevel, homework has a com-paratively small effect onachievement relative to otherteaching methods. But at thehigh school level, homework’seffect is large vis `a vis theother methods. Consideringthat homework is a low-costtreatment, researchers say thatit can yield considerable bene-fits at the secondary level.
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